Sunday, 26 February 2017

According to the lovely livingsober.org,nz I have gone a whole 109 days without alcohol.

Dealing with stress is difficult and after giving up my crutch to in effect "ignoring" the problem, of course the problem or problems don't just go away.

Anxiety, sleep, depression are linked in a way that alcohol masks. The interim hours of sobriety between drinks just fills the void with guilt, self-loathing and a myriad of other problems. Behind all of that the anxiety, sleep, depression just sit in the background.

Sober now, it is the time to face these things and daily life. It is hard, It is sometime so uncomfortable that I want to climb out of my own skin. It has to be done though. Emotional maturity and wellness is achievable after addition. So many others have proved this to be so.

Saturday, 18 February 2017

I have spent a stressful Sunday getting my 11 year old ready for camp next week. I always have terrible anxiety when they are going away.

So I used a fabulous idea that I retrieved from a Smart online meeting last week. The "do" jar. It is a list of things to just go and do when you feel like a drink or whatever. (I have two jars 1. for me on my own and 2. for the kids and I)

I picked "go to the beach" - so off we all went and some friends tagged along. Then I got home and thought - "crap" I should have taken the dog so now I will have to go walk him. So off we went down to the estuary and it was good. This is taken from outside our lounge & kitchen window/doors.

If you look just above the trees at that little channel of water it is where our 3-legged dog got a surprise with the tide coming in (all that sand in the photo is now completely covered).

Tuesday, 14 February 2017

I didn't expect it. I have read a bit from others about happiness and light. It doesn't exist for me... until now...

The first sign was a month or so back when I woke up and felt a little bit of joy. That came and went and was fleeting. Now something else has happened. As I achieve small things, as I enjoy my kids and what I am doing with my time. How productive I have been lately, joy and light of the day and calmness of the night is creeping in.

I don't think I ever knew this, as a young women in her late teens and early 20's it was all party, drink, men, drugs. That kind of life is super hard to keep any type of control over. I remember being very stressed keeping it all together. I would think "why is my life so complicated, so hard, so full of anxiety" Too young, too dumb to realise that I was making this puzzle. I was creating this life. That I indeed created this. I wish someone would have sat me down and looked straight at me and said "Michelle, you can create anything you choose, you can choose to make a different life"

I believed it was all fate, destiny and just rolled from one bad relationship to another, on and on and on. The pressure to look beautiful, to have the best boy, to go to the best parties, to have it all. To have absolutely totally nothing. And that never occurred to me, not once to change. All I knew was I was heavily stressed and anxious all the time - terrified.

So when finally at aged 33 (15 years ago) I met the father of my two 11 and 12 year olds - I thought right - now is the time to settle and have a lovely life. He seemed like a kind gentle guy - he would be nice to me. Within 6 months he slept with his ex - not once, not twice but many more times and she called me to tell me. I loved him and we ended up back together and for the next 10 years we struggled. We created children, we argued, it was a mess. 11 years ago we got married when I was pregnant - 5 years ago we got divorced. 4 years ago we remarried and 3 years ago we finally separated. We are good friends and keep good boundaries.

This reflection shows the life of someone who never knew emotional maturity, someone who had no self-respect, no boundaries, just no fucking idea what she was doing. At all.
No wonder I wanted to die. No wonder I had no hope.

Now I have hope, I want to life again. It is just early and there is light where there was darkness, but it's a beginning.

Monday, 6 February 2017

I spoke to my friend who was taking me to AA yesterday eve and suddenly freaked out. During our conversation on Friday we shared some stories and I said that I haven't had a blackout but often wake up finding I have txt or emailed something random and made arrangements to do things. I didn't forget doing it, but needed prompting by looking at my phone.

I have never forgotten everything, I have never got shit-faced at someone's house and ended up pissing in the garden, I have never drunk too much at the pub and nagged everyone to keep partying when they aren't into it.

That doesn't in anyway lighten what I did do. I couldn't stop thinking about alcohol, I couldn't stop drinking even for one night, I made stupid decisions about pill-taking when I was drinking, I drove drunk, I became utterly selfish and I was depressed and curing it with alcohol. That didn't work. not once.

Anyway, she called me on Sunday and said maybe I should consider NA, and I said what made her mention that as NA isn't very developed around here, much less so that AA. AA seems to deal with alcoholics that: overeat, gamble, take drugs, addicted to all sorts of crap. So why single this out? She said she felt that I had never had a black out so maybe AA wasn't the one for me.... but of course she would take me and said that I am sure you belong it's just nobody she knew at AA had ever not had a black out.

This really put me into a "shit what will I do now spin" and I know that it is only her experience but after 22 years at AA surely she knows her group right? I did say to her that my idea of someone that belongs at AA is someone who finds alcohol is ruining their lives and others around? Those who can't stop and all the other. She agreed but I felt weird and so txt her on the Monday morning saying that I got panicked and thought another time would be better. Didn't want to say the truth and now thinking what is my next support in my seeking out support mission.

To be honest I am getting a bit fucked off and today felt like a drink - but that would be just self-pity and where will that get me.

But I am feeling worse than three days ago. Bugger.
Today I started crying watching something on TV about people having partners and me not. What a sad sack.

Thursday, 2 February 2017

So I went for the interview but I was confused as to whether this guy thought it was a job interview or a date. It seemed to start OK then somehow skirted around what his company actually did and what he was doing - and what I would be doing. He mainly talked about his home in Ireland, being based in London and now working in NZ for a project which so far (15 mins in) I still didn't really understand.

Then I talked about my work history for about 1 minute pulled out my CV which he had no interest in so I turned the conversation back to the project. After not getting very far but learning that he was divorced and had two grown children in NZ I turned the conversation back to the project. I said a couple of intelligent things about projections and forecasts which seemed to spark a light within and off he went actually explaining the project. I was then furnished with a detailed pitch on the project financed by a big company that I recognise. It seemed that I needed to pass a few tests before he shared this info and my CV is impressive (one part of my life that is :)).

As I had met this guy for a couple of mins through a good friend of mine, I wonder if he was serious about all of this or if he had a other intentions. My judgement is flawed due to this recovery process and I do not trust myself at all nor do I trust others I don't know. He has arranged to meet next week to give me one of the projects to cost.

I could be imagining all of this of course and early stages of new projects can be vague.

I don't trust my judgement at all - it is like I can recognise my life's a muddle. I can recognise my thought process is deeply flawed right now. All this I can see.

My first AA meeting is 8 pm on Monday. I am definitely going - a lovely lady I used to work with (she managed one of the charity shops and I managed the other) contacted me and said a little bird had told her (about my going sober) and wondered if she could take me to her meetings. I am so very grateful.

Wednesday, 1 February 2017

My kids (11 and 12 in a couple of weeks) started high school - they get on the bus at 7.30 am and arrive back at 3.45 pm. They go to wonderful intermediate/high schools, one girls one boys and although I am not sure about whether it is good to be not co-ed, all and all I think mixing young teens with different sexes surely takes your mind off school work. They socialise with boys and girls and they are each a boy and a girl and play here at home so stuff it, it seems like a great idea.

They are gone. It's sad and I feel the long holidays are now over, summer is baking the land and I am inside writing this. I have so much to do, hours and hours of housework, hours of house renovations to do. What happened to all the excitement in finishing all of this? Where has it all gone damnit.

I haven't had a migraine for two weeks and that is great, I haven't touched a drop of alcohol in now 86 days (shit thought it was 90 by now). I still battle with pills but it is usually around when I have had a migraine and without the alcohol I have reduced interest in painkillers. The relationship I had with pills was around drinking, without alcohol the effect is gone so it is just going through the motions, which is boring and expensive. So I am clean and I am bored.

I am not regretful of leaving my job and have been offered another so will see about that tomorrow. But I am bone-bored and it is definitely a state of mind. I realise, being sober, that it is not a truth, it is just a feeling.

The feeling is I am bored, I am tired, I am a big fat pain in the arse.

The truth is with or without alcohol I would feel like this anyway, but I would be drinking my way through it. There would be no break only temporary numbness followed by worse feeling-like-crap. Sober, I have a chance.

I don't Want To Turn 50 Like This

I am 49, with 3 lovely children (aged between 23 & 10) and have taken drinking lovely wines and knocking back a couple of painkillers to a level which is out of control. So I have stopped.
This image is special to me - it is myself and my son on my first outing since giving up alcohol. We went to the Sound Museum.
M xx